Condors, Rangers put on a show

WORKERS Club Condors and Rous Hotel Rangers put on an exceptional display of softball when they clashed in the main game of the open women's Far North Coast Softball Association competition at the weekend.

Rangers came out blazing with the bat, hitting through the outfield with Sue Clark and Alison Hunter leading the charge to score five runs in the first innings. After a strike out by Rous' pitcher Loris Gordon on Workers first batter, Carlie Walker made first safely, Workers put on a batting frenzy with Sam Green slamming a home run. Not to be outdone Kasey Renwick stepped up to the plate for a screamer of a hit down left field for a homer.

Rangers attacked the ball again in the second innings with mother and daughter duo of Val and Sam Dowse and Gordon increasing their led. Rangers shut down Workers in the bottom of the second with Cheryl Nilon at second, accounting for two of Workers' outs.

The third innings saw Condors lift their game allowing only one run to cross the plate with Renwick making two brilliant outs at shortstop to shut down the innings.

Walker and Green again hit safely and a two-base hit from Melissa Wilson saw four runs score for Workers, now narrowly closing the gap with Rangers only ahead by three runs.

The top of the fourth innings saw Workers step up their defensive play, with Wilson taking a blitzing line drive from the bat of Clark to close the inning to keep Rangers to a no score. Workers rallied again, with Laura Knight scrambling to make first base, Walker hit a three bagger, followed by Green hitting her second homerun for the day and Renwick driving the ball through centerfield to score the biggest homerun seen for a long time to give Workers a 11 -10 win.

Exceptional batting by Sam Green and Kasey Renwick sealed the win for Workers.

In the other game, Dodger Devils won a close one 10-6 over Byron Bay Whitesox.

Dodgers scored four runs in the first innings but Whitesox were just as eager to hit the ball with Shannon Knapp slamming a home run to score three runs.

Tracey Johnson was solid at third base for Byron. Sonya Pope pitched solid game for Dodgers, and was backed up well in the field by the return of Selena Atkinson.

Kayleen Shailes had a huge hit to centrefield to get around the bases to score a home run.

In division 2, Workers Wild Turkeys proved far too strong for Dodgers Demons with a 15-5 win. The Demons struggled against the Workers combination of Tina Austen pitching to Lauren McGowen and then McGowen pitching to Austen.

Breakaways proved too strong for Blues's Sistas running out winners 14-7 in their game. Sharon and Ashleigh Knight starred with the bat. For Sista's Maryann Brown did a great job on the mound for Blues with Cindy McKenzie putting in a big game at catcher.